By Marco Mijatovic
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In the past, it was unavoidable to see at least one post a day about how having a website is a must when you are running a business. Today, the same applies to social media platforms. Social media marketing has become a popular playground for businesses striving to promote themselves.
And, you know how it goes with favorite playgrounds, they are usually overcrowded. Quite often, SMBs jump right into the social media marketing game and make common mistakes that can potentially cost them greatly in the long run.
Here are the common mistakes businesses make with social media marketing and what you should do to avoid them.
Forgetting to Humanise Your Brand on Social Media
In order to make your brand trustworthy you have to build credibility and reputation with the audience on social media. Spamming the audience with ads and messages that reflect your business ideology is a very common mistake SMBs make when starting out on social media. These types of messages are awfully too generic and they don’t bear any engaging potential whatsoever.
In order to combat this, you have to completely abandon generic writing and use a personal voice. By using a unique slang and by going with a unique tone, you can really personalize your approach in social media marketing. Talking in first person and experimenting with emojis will help you establish a better connection by appearing more as a human on social media. After all, social media platforms are built to connect people rather than corporations and people. By humanizing all interactions on social media, you will help your audience easily relate to your brand.
Forgetting to Integrate Social Media Buttons on Your Website
Making a website is becoming increasingly easier as time passes. Thanks to the site building tools, even people without technical backgrounds can build and publish a website. Fortunately, the message “a website is of the utmost importance” has reached SMBs around the world. But, when it comes to social media marketing, the integration of your social media profiles with your official website is also important.
In order to succeed, you have to at least consider to put social media buttons on your site. The ideal scenario is to have a link to your business website on your social media profiles.
By doing so you will make an online ecosystem for your audience to like and share your content, services, products, offers, and promotions. You can even go one step further and add your social profiles to Google results so that they appear when people perform searches in your niche.
Forgetting About Analytics
One of the great benefits of using digital marketing to promote your business is the data that you get in return. You can basically see anything that you want from it. SMBs usually forget about the analytic features of social media platforms and some other software tools. And, these analytics are vital for your social media marketing success.
There are specific metrics that definitely deserve your close attention. For instance, you should monitor user engagement on your posts. A sudden drop and increase in engagement can help you better shape your social media strategy.
Furthermore, you have Google Analytics at your disposal. You can use them to measure your social media marketing impact. This tool will help you see how much of your website traffic originates from your social media profile. Besides, you will be able to see how your social media followers consume your content. Anyhow, analytics will help you see if your social media marketing efforts have an impact on your business and to what extent.
Disregarding the Comment Section
If you are not aware, we are living in a customer-centric marketing era. This means that companies should do their best to deliver the best experience possible to their customers. But, it also means that customers’ opinions matter. And, you will be getting a lot of these on your social media profile page.
One thing is for sure, the comment section is a place where you will build your reputation. This is why your social media managers have to embrace the mantra of efficiency. Engage with your followers in a conversation whenever they have a question or a comment.
Now, while this may be easy when questions are simple and comments are positive, the tides may turn when you receive public, negative feedback on your social media profile. Dealing with negative comments on social media is a form of art.
Don’t let the negative comments linger too long. Address and acknowledge them as soon as possible. Make sure the customer claims are true and then tailor your apologies and assurances accordingly.
Jumping Into it Without Any Strategy
The key to success of any marketing effort is a good strategy. Jumping into this marketing game without a proper strategy brings a lot of risks with it, one of them being your social media profile turning into a desolate place with zero engagement.
This becomes incredibly important if you are using several different social media platforms. For instance, your posts have to be short to fit into one Tweet and yet informative and engaging.
In order to design an effective strategy, you will have to set goals, learn as much as you can about your audience, identify key competitors and influencers in your niche, and create an engaging content strategy. While the key concepts of any social media marketing strategy are the same for everyone on the market, specific efforts have to be custom tailored to meet both your and your audience’s needs and requirements.
Social media platforms provide numerous opportunities for SMBs to establish a better online presence. They are especially suitable for establishing a better connection with the audience and building a trustworthy brand image. If you avoid the common mistakes we have mentioned here, you will set your social media marketing efforts in the right direction.
Author bio: Marco Mijatovic is one of the guys behind FirstSiteGuide.com, a place fulfilled with numerous free online resources that can help you run, start, and grow your online presence.
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